Passed Over for Promotion Motivator

When coaching someone who has been passed over for a promotion but still wants to go for it, it's important to understand their motivators. The motivators can go beyond just getting the promotion and include things like increased pay, more responsibility, and career advancement. By asking questions about their goals and desired state, it helps solidify their motivation. It's common for people to focus on the rejection and forget about the potential benefits. It's important to remind them of the opportunities and encourage resilience. In a case study, a woman named Emily was upset about not getting a job she interviewed for. Her coach reminded her of the skills she lacked and how it affected her candidacy. The coach encouraged her to change her narrative and approach the interviewer to apologize and express her commitment to her career goals. Surprisingly, the interviewer appreciated her transparency and offered to mentor her to help her build the necessary skills. This shows that rejec You know, when you think about coaching someone who got passed over for a promotion, and they still want to go for the promotion, which is more or less this case study, there inherently is the motivator. Now, there can be what I would call extenuating motivators. Let's think about somebody who wants to go, and we'll make this simple, someone who went for promotional opportunity, got passed over, and they wanted that job, they really want to become a team leader. Let's just call that for what it is, just very generically, ambiguously. Now, what comes with that typically is more responsibility, leadership, potentially more pay, and those are extenuating motivators. So one of the things that you can do is to say, you know what, Julie, I know you want to become a team leader, and this is awesome, I've loved working with you, one thing I haven't asked you, let's assume you get that next promotional opportunity. What will that do for you? What will you achieve? What will you love about achieving that motivator, that goal, that destination, that desired state? And what that does by asking the questions as it relates to their motivator, and again, revisiting, getting that promotional opportunity, it solidifies itself, actualizes in their mind the why. See, when someone is motivated by just getting a promotion, and I say by just getting, the reason I say that sometimes they forget, they get so wallowed in pain they didn't get the promotion that they forget some of the extenuating motivators like increased pay, greater stature, maybe you want to become a manager or director down the road, greater benefits, greater pay, whatever it might be. People tend to think in very single-tier levels. So when someone feels jaded because they didn't get the promotion, they focus on that. They don't focus on, I got to get back up, I can make more money. It's amazing how many people will try and quit. Let me share this with you as a motivator, and I've shared this in a couple different spaces. I have a client by the name of Emily, wanted to be a team, wanted to be a customer service agent inside a manufacturing floor, single mom, three kids, quite frankly, didn't want to be on her feet all the time, which is typically what this job entails on the shop floor of this manufacturing plant, and she didn't get a promotional opportunity. She interviewed for a customer service job, and I've shared this before in other lessons, and she was walking into the lunchroom, and she was complaining to three people. She got screwed over, the interview sucked, it was terrible, and I stood behind her, and I just smiled, and the three people who could see me kind of walked away, and she turned around, and she goes, oh, I didn't know you were there, and I said, yeah, I'm here. I said, did you want to change your story? She said, well, I'm just really angry. I said, so do you mind if I ask you kind of a quick question? Now, I have a great relationship with this young lady. She said, sure. I said, you let your emotions create a different narrative, huh? She said, what do you mean? I said, I know the job you went for. I have to ask you something. Do you know how to do pivot tables in Excel? Do you know how to bring tables into a Word document or Microsoft PowerPoint presentation? She said, no. I said, that's a requirement of the job, so what if the person they hired knew how to do that? Would they have been the right candidate? She immediately went back to her emotions. She said, well, I just felt. I didn't ask you how you felt. I'm asking you, would they have been the better candidate? It's tough to hear. I know it is. She said, well, yeah. I said, okay. I said, so how has that affected your motivation? She said, what do you mean? And she said, well, you know, I still want to go for a promotional opportunity. I still want to work in the office. And I said, well, it's interesting, because you've kind of really sabotaged that. But there might be time. She said, what are you talking about? I said, those three people you just talked to are going to go tell four people. There's going to be 12 narratives of what really happened. Yours wasn't even correct, so they didn't get it correct. And it's going to get to the person that just interviewed you. She said, oh, my God. I said, right. I would go to this person. I would sit down and say, look, I was upset. I mouthed off. I owe you an apology. I wanted to share it before it got to you. And she said, yeah, I'll do that right now. I said, there might be another opportunity. She said, what's that? I said, well, first I need to ask you, are you still committed professionally and thoughtfully and objectively pursuing your motivation of working in the office as a customer service agent? She said, yeah. Yeah, I am. I said, ask him to be your mentor, because he will never expect that from you. See, what happens when people get passed over, we emotionally interpret. We don't think about, how do I continue to differentiate myself? So when you think about coaching to differentiation, how do you stand out? So we went to this gentleman, told her, told him that she had been very upset, and he said, I really appreciate your transparency. It's a typical reaction. Thank you so much for sharing it. I haven't heard anything. And she said, well, I have something else I'd like to ask you. She said, look, you gave me an opportunity. I wasn't qualified for the job. Can I ask why you did that? He said, yeah, you deserved a chance. I wanted you to have the experience. I didn't think we were going to hire you, but, you know, you've been a long-time employee here. So now the rejection had some good feel to it. She said, would you be willing to mentor me so I can build the skills? He said, oh, my gosh, absolutely. See, people forget their motivator in the face of rejection. The flip side of the rejection coin is something called resilience.